


Anything For You

by nhpw



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dom Dean, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic Discipline, M/M, Mark of Cain, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 10, Season/Series 13 Spoilers, Sub Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 19:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12755097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhpw/pseuds/nhpw
Summary: Cas knows that Dean sleeps angry; he knows to make the coffee; he knows what Dean wants just from a gesture of his hand.There's a story behind that.





	Anything For You

**Author's Note:**

> AKA "Why Cas Knows The Things He Knows About Dean."
> 
> The bulk of this takes place during Season 10, but Cas is sharing a story that dates to Season 4, and toward the end it tumbles up to the present day.
> 
> Full disclosure: This little nugget popped into my head and spilled out on the page over 2 hard ciders a day after watching 13.06 "Tombstone" for the first time. Also marginally influenced by Kripke's statement on Twitter that Dean doesn't like to fly because he likes to be in control, and he has no control over airplaines.
> 
> Not beta'd; barely proofread. And tomorrow I might very well read this and realize it was a huge mistake to post it when I'd been drinking. But for now, here y'all go.

It started because Dean, for once, was open about his feelings.

Well - sort of. What he said was, “I feel like I don’t have control, Cas, and I don’t like feeling out of control, all right? I like to have a plan, I like to know how things are gonna go, I like-- I like when things go my way. This isn’t going my way at all.” Which, Cas supposed when he really thought about it, wasn’t so much Dean Winchester sharing his feelings as it was Dean Winchester making a statement of fact.

Regardless, it got the point across. “You don’t control the Mark.”

“No.” Muttered more than spoken, and shoulders slumped in defeat. Dean’s back was turned, and he was fiddling with something Cas couldn’t see; he supposed maybe it wasn’t anything important at all, really. Dean was looking for a distraction from Cas, from the conversation, from his general state of being. But the fact remained, he felt the weight of the Mark, and that was far more evident in Dean’s body language than in anything that had actually come out of his mouth.

Dean didn’t control the Mark of Cain. It controlled  _ him _ , and that was driving him out of his mind.

An idea nagged at the far corners of Castiel’s mind, and he took a deep breath and let it out. He chose his next words carefully. “Dean,” he began, mostly because that’s how he prefaced any conversation or speech to the elder Winchester, “There’s… something I never told you. Something that happened when I pulled you out of Hell.”

Dean turned slowly and Cas was instantly pinned by a look of incredulity. “You kiddin’ me, Cas? I’m as good as pouring my heart out here, and you wanna take a walk down memory lane?”

“It’s--” He cast his eyes heavenward, as though asking for answers from a place he knew had none to offer. “I think it might help you to understand what I intend to say next. Hear me out?”

Dean huffed a laugh and waved his hand. “Goodness knows I got nothin’ but time, huh? Fine, whatever.”

He charged ahead, choosing to ignore Dean’s indifference. “When I found you, you were… You were in a bad way.”

“I was in Hell.” It was delivered in perhaps the flattest tone Cas had ever heard Dean use.

“Yes, well.” He shrugged and half-smiled; it was a gesture he’d seen humans adopt when they were a little flustered, or perhaps events weren’t quite unfolding the way that they’d hoped. “The thing about it was, I found it absolutely remarkable, because you had been given power - you had command of a station, and authority, and the easy assumption would be that in such a position, a person - a soul - a  _ being  _ would have control of everything around them. But you… you didn’t. You were wild, untethered… and above and beyond everything you were doing, all the--” he stopped himself short, because Dean was glaring at him, fingers of both hands curling slowly inward toward his palms, “What you hated most was your complete lack of control over yourself and your surroundings. When I first moved to take you with me, you-- you lashed out, and it was a few rounds of exchanged bouts of power before I realized your frustration with me-- you didn’t care who I was, why I was there. You were angry because I was just one more factor in your environment that was beyond your control.” He paused and his eyes flickered to Dean’s hands as the balled fists began to slowly relax and uncurl. “So I-- I yielded. I surrendered.”

Dean stared at him, unblinking, and Cas just stayed where he was, sitting rigidly on the edge of Dean’s bed in his room in the Bunker, not quite sure what kind of reaction he should be expecting.

When Dean did break form, it wasn’t in any way Cas had expected: His face broke open and laughter bubbled up from somewhere deep inside, as though he’d just now gotten a joke. “You’re kidding me. You-- an angel, and hey, back then, a pretty damn powerful one at that -- no offense -- you surrendered. To me. In Hell.” He shook his head, still chuckling from somewhere deep in his chest. “Even if that’s true, I completely fail to see how that’s relevant under the current circumstances.”

“I assure you that I am not kidding, and that it is true.” Cas could only be open and earnest, as was his way when Dean behaved as though Cas had the capability of telling such a long-winded lie.

“Well then how’d we get out of there, huh? I mean, I remember--” Those green eyes clouded over and Dean’s face went hard and dark, and that said all the things that didn’t need to be spoken aloud. “But I sure as hell don’t remember strapping you to that rack and tearing you apart, and I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what I would’ve done if you’d given me the opening.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Come again?”

“I knelt, and I laid aside my sword, and I bowed my head. The only thing protecting me at the time was my wings, and I tucked them in as close to my body as I could. You could’ve done… any number of things. You might have. Maybe you should have. But instead, you approached me, and you stood over me, as though you were… waiting. Waiting for me to make a move to attack, I assume, or to… lash out, or talk back, or something, to give you some reason to raise your ire and strike out at me. And that’s not what happened. I can’t say for certain how long we stayed like that, but I can tell you that eventually, you asked for my name, and I gave it without looking up. You asked what I wanted, why I was there, and I was honest. You asked--” he softened his tone as the memory flared to life. “You asked me to stand, so I stood. You struck me, and I made no move to strike back. You asked me to remove the young woman from your rack and slide into her place. And I did. But you never closed the restraints. You didn’t lay a hand on me. My docile compliance was the first bit of order you’d had in years. You didn’t need to hurt me. You just needed me to do what you asked. And eventually, you asked me to take you home. So I did.” Finished, Cas spread his hands as if laying out his cards.

“I never…”

“You enjoy order. You enjoy rules and having your orders obeyed. I’ve done that for you before, and I can do that for you again, if you need. Though if I’m honest, I’d prefer that this time, you refrain from hitting me in the heat of it.”

Dean was chewing on his bottom lip now. Cas was reasonably sure, from the man’s expression, that he was trying to see if he could remember any of the things Cas had just said. He couldn’t tell whether or not Dean was successful when their eyes met again.

“I’m offering to help you again, Dean,” he said slowly. “In much the same way. When you feel out of control, when you feel like the Mark is taking you off the rails, you come to me. You ask me to do things, and I’ll do them. You give me orders and I will follow them to the letter, no questions, no talking back, unless I feel you’re genuinely putting yourself in danger. If,” he paused. “If you think it would help.”

There was a long, silent stretch where Cas was sure Dean would say no. But then it came out with a nod. “Yeah. I, uh. I think it might.”

And so, after some fits and starts, they fell into a routine. It was through this arrangement that Cas learned how and when Dean liked his coffee; that he loved to watch movies but only when he had someone to watch them with, even if he had to coerce said person into watching a movie he maybe wouldn’t choose for himself; that he preferred his popcorn a little bit burnt because it reminded him of his childhood, and motel microwaves that never quite got it right. It was how he learned that Dean didn’t like being alone, not ever, if he could help it.

It was how he learned that Dean sometimes cried in his sleep, though he’d never admit to it -- Cas had tried, just once, and Dean had stormed out. He never touched that again, nor did he ever attempt to wake Dean during any such fits - or for any other reason, for that matter - in the future.

It helped, but in the end, it didn’t solve the problem; it just put a balm over the effects of the Mark. Eventually simply being domestically submissive wasn’t enough.

Cas let Dean beat him just once.

Let him fuck him so hard he bled, just once.

But none of that was real and all of it was the Mark, of course, and Cas knew that no matter how much he tried to convince himself that Dean needed this, needed him, needed his compliance -- no.

But the fact was, he couldn’t give Dean up.

The fact was, if Cas was honest, this was as much for himself as it was for Dean. Because he loved Dean, loved him so deeply and so profoundly that he’d give anything, that he’d literally lay down his life, if it set Dean Winchester’s mind at ease.

It ended with a beating.

It ended, as all things seemed to, with pain.

But that wasn’t the end, not really, and time marched on, after the Mark and after the Darkness and after Lucifer and on into the Empty, to a field of blackberries and wild grass gone to seed, and then to a motel, and a grown boy who didn’t know how to yield and didn’t know not to wake Dean before it had been 4 hours  _ exactly  _ since he’d closed his eyes.

“Who’s making the coffee?”

Cas did, of course. Because though it had been years, he still remembered, and he would still do anything Dean asked him to do.

Because he loved him.

Oh, how he loved him to the very bottom of his soul, and if the only way he could demonstrate that was to make black coffee and fill a mug and sit silently at Dean’s side until the second-and-a-half mug was empty, then that was what he would do.


End file.
